Dear Mr. Tan,
I wish to engage a lawyer to handle my complaint on the Vista investment plan. I have not been properly adviced about the penalty charges on the early termination of this plan. This has caused me to lose a large part of the amount that I have invested. Can you recommend this lawyer?
REPLY
I am not able to give you a name right now. If I come across a lawyer that is interested to take this case, I will inform you.
If anyone knows of a lawyer who is interested, please send their contact to kinlian@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteWhy not go to Fidrec?
ReplyDeleteIf FI or LFI refuses to pay, FIDREC can do nothing because they only mediate.
ReplyDeleteMy friend has to sought private lawyer help even though FIDREC rule in his favour. All because the FI refuses to pay.
Going for FIDREC first then private suit in the event the judgement from FIDREC is against you or FI refuses to pay compensation.
I suspect it will be expensive to hire a lawyer.
ReplyDeleteA fresh law graduate's starting salary is $5,000 - $5,500 according to the Straits Times article which reported on CJ Chan's speech to new lawyers recently.
Considering the starting pay, it's understandable that CJ Chan spent the bulk of his speech encouraging the lawyers to do pro-bono (free) work.
Maybe somebody should give the same speech to politicians and civil servants to also likewise do pro-bono work.
Is there any chance that a lay person can initiate and do his own legal work. Not ideal, but what can you do? The price of justice is expensive in Singapore
The cost of handling investment fraud by private lawyer ranges from $650 to $1000 an hour.
ReplyDeleteThe best part during the beginning of Minibond Saga back in late 2008, Senior lawyers were asking for $4 million commitment before starting the Lehman Brothers/Pinnacle study. I don't know whether is high cost is to discourage people or these Singaporean lawyers are the top people who have lost touch with the ground and $4 million to them is PEANUT. This gets me recalling another incident where well respected person said that Mr. TT salary of $600,000 a year is PEANUT. No wonder $1.54 - $3.2 million a year for politicians in the cabinet is consider "not-a-lot". Too bad messages from this Blog will continue to fall on DEAF FROGS ears. Maybe dropping the 66% winning margin to 49.5% is a good way to ask the Deaf Frogs to take out the earplugs.
If a lawyer is beyond your reach try pro bono legal service.
ReplyDeleteI've tried pro bono legal service.
ReplyDeleteYou get 10 minutes of a lawyer's (fresh graduate) time. And that's it. After that, you are own your own again.
But don't take my word for it. Give it a try and satisfy yourself.
You should also consider approaching your MP for help.
ReplyDeleteGive your MP a fair chance that he/she is of some use to you and society.
If he/she fails to help you, then you can vote accordingly in the next general elections with a clear conscience. Be sure to tell your friends and relatives about your experiences.
I have advised the policyholder to seek the assitance of the Law Society of Singapore to recommend a suitable lawyer.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we reinventing the wheel again and again.
ReplyDeleteWe approached MPs when Minibond collapsed. What was the result?
MP refer us to MAS.
MAS refer us to FIDREC.
FIDREC refer us to FI who sold us the product.
FI reject our complain and say we are greedy and blame us. FI dare us to go FIDREC
Do you notice what the MP done? No different if it is lankbanking. It is non of their business. Same goes to MAS.
When come to voting, PAP should try so hard to win votes since the past few years sold how arrogant they have been.
I want to ask the Zurich Vista policyholder why did he or she sign the Benefit Illustration when it clearly shows the Effect of Deduction, Reduction in Yield and the early surrender penalty? Did he/she sign the BI without reading it?
ReplyDeleteFelt that it is important for people to know what they are signing rather than wait years later only to discover they had bought a product that they did not want.
Isn't the decision of Fidrec binding on the FI but not the investor?
ReplyDeleteHi Wilfred,
ReplyDeleteyou know that it is not uncommon that some adviser can spend hours talking anything under the sun but spend 30 seconds talking about the benefit illustration. A prudent investor will not likely get into Vista if he looks deep into the BI.
Adrian
I also have a vista policy, however my experience is much different from most of the posts I have read.
ReplyDeleteI asked my financial adviser for a dollar cost averaging product that I intended to stick to for about 20 years for our pension.
I also stipulated that I would need a product that I could stop paying if in a pinch, or even withdraw some if required somewhere down the line.
After explaining the bonus in the first 12 month, lock up of the 1st 18 month money and the commitment level we needed (heck, we are the ones who made that objective clear) we plumped for the so called "gold" plan.
I have a bad feeling this product is getting slammed as people get very badly advised from financial advisers that have their own interests at heart, who don't communicate as to what the expectations are to participate in this product (long term, not 1-2 year) & investors who get greedy over the bonus and may start becoming deaf to the downside.
Don't enter this product if you have may have immediate need for cash.
Don't over commit on what you think you contribute every month. Be honest and realistic, not best case scenario.
Ensure you have an emergency fund in place so you don't need to even think about pulling out money or stopping contributions.
We have had spectacular gains since we started in mid 2008 by dollar cost averaging through this whole economic nightmare because we had long term focus.
After reading some of the comments on this blog I have gone back several times to Zurich to confirm that my understanding of the product is correct as doubts slipped in by virtually all comments being negative in nature.
If you were sold on this product any other way than we were, with all the pros and cons explained then shame on the FA that hawked you the plan.